I have recently made the switch from a SmartThings V3 hub to Hubitat. I have moved about 90 devices to the Hubitat hub. I have about 10 devices, (wall switches and plugs, as well as a couple battery contact sensors) in a building about 135 feet from the hub. My new Hubitat hub is exactly where the SmartThings hub was. I am having trouble with reliable connections with some of these devices. They are not showing up as off-line, but they are missing triggers from various rules. Sometimes I have to trigger the device from the devices page multiple times to get it to work. In looking in the settings> Zwave Details, I see a table with "routes". Some of them have what I assume is a signal strength below the route. (guessing here) What does this 100kbps tell me?
Additionally, any thoughts on why this hub is having trouble communicating with these outside devices when the SmartThings hub had no trouble at all for years?
I have an Aeotec extender coming tomorrow to see if this will help.
Hardware Version C-8 Pro
Platform Version 2.4.0.151
They are routing through repeaters (hops). So really the range of the hub itself is not relevant.
The 100Kbps is the connection speed. 100 is the best, 40 is OK, and 9.6 is worst.
How far are the nearest repeaters? Ideally you should have 2-3 within reach so there are route options.
Your outbuilding may be a perfect scenario to add a second hub and "mesh" it with the main one. You could even grab a used C7 or C8 and put that out there just for those few devices to connect to. Then the info is meshed to the main hub over your LAN.
There is 1 Jasco Wall switch on the back deck which is about half way between the hub and the devices. What seems wierd is that none of the devices in the back building are going through that switch (looking at the zwave graph). They are however going "backwards" through the furthest device then back to the hub taking 4 hops.
If I add another C8 back there, do I need WIFI back there? (I don't have it that far back). That's why I am going to try the Aeotec repeater, (even though the Jasco wall switch should be doing what I'm going to try with the repeater...
I've never understood how devices figure out how to choose their routes.
I have devices that are plenty close to the hub--yet they end up routing through 1-2 devices that are nearly the farthest from the hub. It's pretty wonky.
I actually suspect that some of this can be a bit random. Z-Wave Plus will update routes as needed. I'm suspicious that these weird things happen when the hub gets busy. Some packets get dropped, so the devices try some other routes and settle on the one that worked (even if it is very circuitous).
Yes you would need wifi so that’s a problem for that option then.
Yes that is probably exactly what happens. Something doesn’t make it through fast enough so the device re routes.
If you only have one good route then all the other options it tries are not so great but sometimes they will settle in there. Then they may switch back to the optimal route again at some point but if something goes slow then it re routes again.
Found it. Interesting idea. More parts than I needed before... This has me puzzled.... Same devices, same locations, the only change is replacing Smartthings V3 with C8 Pro. For years these devices were bulletproof with the V3. I assumed that since the C8 has these external antennas, they might be better....
Switching hubs disrupted the entire mesh (obviously). Things may have settled in on the ST hub and was working well after some time. Not sure how long you have been on HE? We would also need to see the entire z-wave details page to get the full picture of the mesh.
Security, I see the devices are included with no security. If they have S2 security ability (with QR code) then I think ST would have added them that way without question. Having the S2 enabled can improve reliability in two ways. Better packet error checking, and also "supervised" commands (when implemented in the driver for HE) which have a more robust send and check system.
Automatic Retries, ST may be doing automatic retries if the device does not respond (not sure if it does or not). This feature JUST got added to Hubitat in 2.4.1, it can be enabled on the device settings or in bulk in the hub settings. This wont help with sensors but it might with switches and oher devices you activate from the hub.
Total time about 3 weeks. I moved devices off of ST in groups starting with the closest to the hub. The building in the back was the last group, (this week).
I'll post the ZWave details page when I get home tonight....
They were not added with security on ST, so I figured just keep it the same.... Is there an "easy" way to add security now, or is it exclude and include again?
I'm not sure about this either, but I don't think ST was doing this. If this is an option for me, it just might be the easiest solution!
What do you mean by missing triggers? Looks like 3 are switches and one is a sensor. The sensor I assume they are missing reports. The switches, are commands from the hub having issues, or when you activate the switch the state on the hub does not update?
Yes, must not have waiting long enough or something, the RTT values should update with values and the Route Changes should not be all 0. Some might be 0 but there is no way they are all 0.
This does have the new Aeotec Extender added outside about 60 feet from the back buildings. I don't know if it will help, but the next triggers are at 6:45 AM tomorrow.
So mostly looks good, a few devices to keep on eye on. Instead of listing them all they are easy to find. You look for anything with a high RTT (over 100ms), and you look for higher outliers on route changes. Every route change the device sends out tons of discovery packets and it can disrupt things for a few seconds. Some of your further devices might be re-routing every time they communicate with the hub.
If you make adjustments reboot the hub, the stats will reset that way. So if you have not rebooted since adding the extender it might not be a bad idea.
23, 24 and 3d are switches. 38 is an outdoor outlet.
What I mean by missing triggers is this for 0x003d (Pop Door):
I have a rule (SharpTools) ...everyday a Sunrise, it checks the current temperature, forecasted hightemp, forecasted low temp, and if the numbers fall within the range I use as acceptable, it triggers 0x003d (Pop Door) to open, then send me a Pushover telling me the reason the door either opened or did not. (based on temprature). I moved these devices Sunday and 0x003d (Pop Door) has not opened. I do get the Pushover message telling me that it did open which completes the rule. This has been bullet-proof for years. When this happens, I'll manually trigger the device from Hubitat Devices. It might take 5 or 6 presses to get it to open. I guess this is telling me that it is not receiving the trigger. That's what I mean by missing triggers. Maybe there is a better way to state that..... Make sense now?
I just updated to the latest so I can try the Command retry, and it rebooted. I appreciate the lesson on the RTT and route change. I see a couple with around 30 changes, so that doesn't sound good, and I do see what you are saying. I'm thinking that the Extender might work better for me if I put it in the back building as long as it connects to the hub from back there. Thoughts?
